A 29-year-old Charlton Kings man became 'addicted' to child and animal porn after he was introduced to it by a stranger he met on the internet, a court heard.

Matthew Powles, of Ryeworth Road, admitted what he had been doing as soon as police raided his home after a tip off, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

The garden machinery maintenance worker pleaded guilty today to possession of indecent and extreme porn images between July 2016 and February 2017 and was sentenced to nine months jail suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to undergo a 15 day day rehabilitation requirement and a 30 day programme requirement and was ordered to sign ths sex offender register for ten years. A five year sexual harm prevention order was also imposed.

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The judge, Recorder Frank Abbott, told him that his immediate admissions and genuine remorse saved him from immediate custody.

Prosecutor Sarah Gerrard said police received intelligence that an indecent image had been downloaded to Powles' IP address when he was using 'Chatster' and his home was raided on February 15 this year.

He seemed nervous, was pacing around, and then said: "I think I know what you're here for. I've been looking at stuff."

Ms Gerrard told the court: "He said things had spiralled since about two years ago when he was introduced to a particular website. Other people posted these images on that site and he clicked on them. He said he had not sent any to others.

"He said he had been trying to stop. He said he had cut down a lot."

Found on his computers were 78 child porn pictures and 51 movies at the most serious category A level, 95 stills and 35 movies at Category B and 722 stills and 26 moves of Category C. There were also five extreme pornography stills and nine movies.

Powles was of previous good character, added the prosecutor.

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Powles, who was not legally represented, told the court he had been looking at 'normal general pornography' when a stranger on the internet told him about the site displaying the illegal images. They had been free to look at, he said.

The judge asked: "Why couldn't you stop?"

Powles replied: "I did try. I got back to the normal general porn then found myself on this site again."

The judge asked if he had a relationship and he said he did and he had told his partner. She had not 'ditched' him over it.

Passing sentence the judge said: "You had become addicted to looking at this sort of material. That is one of the problems of it being freely available if you know where to look. Perhaps in the future it will be possible for internet providers to clamp down on this material so it is not available at all.

"In my view it is in the public interest to find a way of rehabilitating you rather than imprisoning you."